The former owners of a nationalised Ukrainian bank were described as ‘the two elephants in the case’ as the High Court in London heard they would not give evidence in a 14-week trial centring on the alleged misappropriation of almost $2bn.

Opening in the Rolls Building yesterday in PJSC Commercial Bank PrivatBank v Kolomoisky and ors, Andrew Hunter KC, for PrivatBank, said businessmen Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov were not giving evidence as ‘they would have been exposed as the people the bank says they really are’.

In court documents, PrivatBank said: ‘It is quite clear that [the two] have chosen to deprive the bank of the opportunity to cross-examine them (and their associates) because [they] would be exposed as liars and fraudsters’.

Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov, who owned more than 80% of the bank before it was nationalised in 2016, are being sued by PrivatBank for alleged misappropriation of just under $2 billion through what PrivatBank’s legal team described as ‘sham’ loans.

In court filings, Kolomoisky’s defence team said that the bank failed to ‘identify specific acts, omissions or deductions on the part of [Kolomoisky] that were unlawful as a matter of Ukrainian civil law or which directly caused the bank loss’.

Bogolyubov’s lawyers, in court filings, said there ‘is no evidence that Mr Bogolyubov knew of the “scheme” or misappropriation, still less that he directions or authorised the relevant loans or the relevant drawdowns or the unreturned prepayments’.

In court, Hunter said: ‘There are 18 counsel. We are not short of counsel. We are, however, short of participating defendants. As Your Lordship knows we were told at the pretrial review in March this year, the second defendant would not be attending to give evidence. A few weeks ago, the first defendant said he was not giving evidence either. The two elephants in the case are not in the room and neither have they presented their associates or nominees to give evidence.

‘We say that is the central factor of this trial. My Lord knows what this case is about. These are a serious set of allegations, the Court of Appeal referred to it as ‘fraud on an epic scale.'

He told the court that Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov 'have absented themselves and their associates from this trial because if they were to give evidence…it would be exposed as incredible. They would have been exposed as the people the bank says they really are.’

Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov deny any wrongdoing.

The trial, expected to last 14 weeks, continues.